


Wrong

by Narkito



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2011-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narkito/pseuds/Narkito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John accidentally encounter the doctor who, when Sherlock was a child, diagnosed Sherlock as a sociopath. John tells him how wrong he finds the diagnosis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt in the [sherlockbbc_fic](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/) kink meme, which can be found [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6487.html?thread=32730711#t32798295).

“… so far so obvious, John, I mean, if you’re going to kill someone, it would be best if you didn’t run it in the papers the day bef—“, Sherlock had suddenly stopped walking and talking altogether. Staring at something across the street.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock, barely looks at him, searching the crowd for someone, “it’s just, I thought I saw someone... our old family doctor, the one that first... ah, there he is! It _is_ him. He hasn’t aged that much, he’s still the same taut man I remember...”

“The one that first what, Sherlock?” John thinks he has a faint idea of what Sherlock is talking about, but he would much rather he would say it out loud. Just to be sure.

Sherlock doesn’t even bother looking at John; he’s still following every move of old Dr Richardson, who has just stepped into a shop. “Well, the first to point out that I had a sociopathic behaviour, of course.” He says this all matter-of-factly, and it just makes John’s blood boil and rush faster through his veins.

“Oh, really? How old were you?” He knows that Sherlock won’t notice the fake in his voice. He’s no good at this sort of things if he’s not engaged a 100% on what the person is saying, or rather, _how_ the person is saying it.

“12, if I remember correctly.” Every muscle in John locks and he makes up his mind right then and there.

“Well, let’s go say hi.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, and grabs (a mildly confused) Sherlock by the arm.

They cross the street and go straight into the shop; a bakery. Sherlock keeps giving quick glances to John; he’s not sure if he should be concerned or annoyed yet. John has a _look_ on his eyes, which screams “determination”, and something else. He’s not sure what yet. Anger, perhaps? Vexation? Annoyance? No. Too soon to tell. Instead, Sherlock locates Dr Richardson and gives a curt nod into his direction. John promptly stands in front of the man, finally releasing Sherlock’s arm.

Richardson seems put off at first, he hasn’t recognised Sherlock yet. And then, in a split second there’s something aching of aversion in his face. “Sherlock Holmes.” He says, it’s not a question, but not a greeting either, merely a statement of fact. It goes right over Sherlock’s head as he’s still working out John’s intentions.

“Doctor Richardson, may I introduce, Doctor John Watson, he’s my—“

“—friend. Hello.” John finishes and extends his hand in one swoop motion. Richardson looks between them before extending his hand to John.

“Friend? You must be the first friend of Sherlock’s I’ve ever met!”

“Really? And why is that? Surely even sociopaths can make the odd acquaintance here and there...”

 _Oh, John, this is what it’s about_. Sherlock thinks. And his heart both sinks and perks up a little. He hates being the topic of conversation, but at the same time it’s extraordinarily satisfying to have someone defend his honour, even if it’s almost two decades too late.

“... I mean, what were you thinking, telling a 12-year old boy he was a sociopath? Hmm? Do you even know the actual guidelines to diagnose such disorder? Or was it too much trouble to get up and fetch a psychiatry manual? Do you even know what they look like?”

“Doctor Watson, I hardly think this is the moment or the place...”

“Well, I hardly think there’ll be another chance, so, seriously, what were you thinking?”

“Sir, I’m bound to doctor confidentiality, I cannot...!”

“Don’t worry, I’m his doctor now. As you were his doctor then. Didn’t it occur to you that a paediatrician should’ve been consulted? Or a child psychologist? Instead of just slapping a label on a child, without further explanation? Hmm?”

Richardson had pressed his lips in a tight line, and was holding his bag of pastries close to his jacket pocket. His other hand occupied with a walking stick; his entire body weight leaning into it.

Dr Richardson was at first sight a rather distinguished man. His white hair short and neat. Clean shaven. Pressed suit. Somewhere in his late sixties and early seventies. However, he was now looking closer to a child who had just been scolded over his homework, than that image of distinction.

“I bet it wasn’t even in a clinical setting, you just did it as a passing remark, am I wrong? But either way, how could you’ve been so careless? You should’ve known that it isn’t diagnosable until age 18, you should’ve also known that is has many differential diagnosis you need to go through. And if you had actually been bothered to do your work well, you would’ve noticed exactly how far off you were.”

John was not, by any means, being loud or making a scene, but people were overtly staring by now. The bakery’s usual business slowed down to half-speed.

Sherlock had been too shocked, for a lack of a better word to intervene before, but the feeling of being stared at and quite possibly judged by strangers in such a collective way made him uneasy. So he intervened by touching John softly on the elbow, and looking straight into Richardson’s eyes as he said: “John, perhaps we should go and leave Doctor Richardson to his affairs”.

John, who was also looking intently into the other doctor’s eyes, responded with a brisk “yes, quite”, and allowed himself to be led out to the street and into the general direction of _anywhere else_.

The ride back home was quiet. John kept fussing over the lapel of his jacket and crossing and uncrossing his arms, whilst looking out the window. Sherlock alternated looking at passing cars, and looking at John fretting over his wardrobe. It reminded him of his own ride back home from the library at age 12, his head full of incomprehensible knowledge about personality disorders and their criteria. Some phrases extending quite beyond the tangible and into the obscure language of the trade. It had meant nothing and everything all the same. He also remembers his mother’s worried face when he had gotten off the train. She had pestered him with questions he did not want to answer. What was he thinking? He wasn’t old enough to just wander off alone. What had been so important at the library that he just couldn’t wait for someone to take him there? Why couldn’t he just talk with her? She also told him how she had been worried sick when his absence had been noted and even more so after getting a police call from an entirely different town, asking if one _Sherlock Holmes_ was her son, for he had been detained at the national library after having a shouting match with the clerk. Of course, Sherlock thought, “shouting match” was hardly the correct description. “Rage outburst” had certainly been more accurate and a far better reason for him to get detained in the first place.

He barely noticed getting to 221B Baker Street. John had to tap him in the arm to get him out of his reverie. It’s been a while since he’s revisited his childhood, but every time he does it gets him a while to completely come back. They go upstairs and John settles in the sofa after taking his jacket and shoes off. Sherlock goes about checking his experiments in the kitchen and almost doesn’t hear what John says to him.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“John, it takes a lot more than that to embarrass me, in fact, I think ‘embarrassment’ is only in my theoretical dictionary, I don’t think I have hands-on experience with it.” John laughs with his eyes and Sherlock smiles back. “And you? Feel better after that?”

“Yes, very.”

“What I can’t grasp in its entirety, though, is what came over you to go over there and say all those things to him. I mean, I hardly think you’ve accomplished anything. It’s not like you can fix the past, and since he’s retired it’s not like—“. John lifts his left hand, as if to say stop talking; so Sherlock does exactly that.

“Sherlock, you’re by no means perfect, but you _do_ have a heart. I think that’s reason enough, isn’t it?” Sherlock doesn’t have a response to that, but he thinks it’s better that way, so he goes back about his business. With a tiny hint of a smile.


End file.
